


Incomplete

by Root_floops



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 14:03:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4789991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Root_floops/pseuds/Root_floops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sameen Shaw is herself, right to the end. And it's OK.</p>
<p>[Shaw pov up to If-Then-Else]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incomplete

Sameen Shaw had always known that she was different. “Sameen, don’t. Play nice,” they told her as a 5-year-old, grabbing her by the shoulders when she shoved that bully into the sand, mounted him and stuck the plastic shovel two inches from his ear, wrist pressed against his throat as he struggled and wailed for his Mom.

She shrugged, got off him and went back to her corner of the playground, the one that others knew not to invade. It was quiet and the shady trees provided a respite from the heat, and Sameen likes the quiet.

 When primary school starts, Sameen’s _difference_ become more obvious. Her parents and teachers attempt to get her to socialise or something, she’s not quite sure what that word means, or why she should bother. She’s never really tried to please anyone, because it just seems like too much effort. She’s naturally quiet, does well in school because it’s too _easy_ , and looks forward to Taekwondo classes on the weekends because she gets to hit stuff.

 Sameen enjoys the sweat, the force, the speed – the adrenaline that rushes through her and the sense of _rightness_ when she executes moves with the exacting precision and physicality required in a moment. It brings her closer to a connection with the world, almost as if she becomes one with her environment, and that sense of control and power is intoxicating. Her parents think that she goes to play at Marty’s house three times a week after school, but she heads alone to the jungle gym and pulls herself over the bars, gaining mastery over her body, building coordination and strength.

 After she’s tired herself out, she sometimes watches from under the trees as other kids run around, playing tag, and she wonders what could be enjoyable about _that_. Why would anyone run away from someone who could easily be incapacitated with a single, well-placed blow?

 Sameen, at age 8, is the youngest kid at her dojo to achieve the level of black belt. She knows that there are 2nd and 3rd degree black-belts, but to be honest, she’s already bored with it. They emphasize form, and the competition/combat rules feel restrictive and _dumb_. Why shouldn’t she utilise every skill that she has at her disposal?

 She talks her Dad into paying for some Brazillian jujitsu classes when she stumbles upon one taking place next door, and masters the basics within a few months. Unlike with Taekwondo, she no longer bothers with competitions and evaluations – she just enjoys kicking the asses of her older instructors, who stop treating her as a student and more as a training companion.

Things change the night of the car accident. Sameen’s known for some time now that people die, that’s just the way things are. She remembers the look of horror on the paramedic’s face when she asks for a sandwich, and doesn’t _comprehend_. Her father’s passed away, she understands that, but it’s now a part of the past. Sameen knows that the past will affect the present, and the present affects the future, but she also knows that you can’t go back and change what happened before.

 Besides, she’s hungry, and that’s something that can be fixed. It’s better to act on things that you can do something about rather than worry about unchangeable facts. The differences in how she sees the world are starting to add up, but that look of horror stays with her. Sameen doesn’t understand why, but she understands that something happened – even before the accident, probably when she was born, to make her _different_. It is then that she decides to become a doctor. Because doctors add value to the world and even if she never quite belongs, she can still be useful.

\------------------------------------

While her peers are dating and stressing about girls/boys/sex/identity, Sameen shrugs, and continues her studying and physical training. Her main priority is to get into a university, and then medical school, and the training allows her part of the release that she needs. She doesn’t understand what love is, or why it exists – some sort of psychological evolutionary mechanism to keep the peace, like with the bonobos?

Sameen thinks that evolutionarily speaking, there is no logical reason for humans to have any emotions at all, unless you count the social compulsion to preserve harmony and a pressure to weed out aggression as we live in increasingly large social groups. Sex is something that she does understand, having lost her virginity when she was 16 to some 19-year-old dude who worked on her car. Not that her virginity was a big deal, and she really enjoyed the power and the way he looked so vulnerable and turned on when she threw him down and got on top of him.

After that first time, it becomes an itch that she scratches regularly when she gets the urge, and it doesn’t really matter who she does it with because she takes _precautions_ and can protect herself physically. There were a couple of times when guys tried to get rough and ended up being surprised when the tables were quickly turned. Sameen enjoyed those the most. She doesn’t do romance, or icky, ill-defined things like _feelings and shit,_ and everyone in her school knows that.

 By college, there are few who know her first name, and everyone just calls her Shaw. It’s impersonal, professional, no-nonsense. Exactly how she likes it. She sails through her classes and takes up weapons training on top of training at her MMA box, because there is nothing more exciting or powerful than holding a sub-machine gun like the MP5 and feeling its recoil when fired.

The M4A1 carbine is pretty fucking awesome too, but rifles are a rather different ballgame and the thrill is more in the build up to the shot and the challenge of mathematically adjusting to your environment than in the immediate violence of discharging the weapon. Shaw enjoys firing handguns too, there’s something deeply intimate and powerful about the way it sits in your palm that reminds her of sex, and violence in general is a huge turn-on.

When she graduates medical school and enters her residency, Dr. Shaw has an impeccable academic record, a prestigious fellowship at the trauma unit that provides her with the on-the-job variety and adrenaline she needs, and no ties to anyone in the world. Her mother passed away during her 3rd year of medical school – an aggressive form of glioma – and as she evaluated her options, she recognised that there was little that could be done medically.

She wasn’t impressed with her Mom’s neurologists. They could clearly see the facts but advocated for aggressive chemo when it was obvious that all that would do is prolong the pain leading up to the inevitable. When her Mom’s neurologists found out that she was a medical student, they spoke to her condescendingly. _You really should know better, Ms Shaw._ Those kinase inhibitors had a notoriously low rate of success, in any case, and from the genotyping that she secretly did of biopsy tissue, it wasn’t even directed against the right receptors and would do _fuck all_.

That _unprofessional shit_ was probably to enhance hospital profit margins and give them an excuse to charge these new generation $8000/month drugs to her mother’s insurers. The neurologists didn’t appreciate the young Sameen Shaw pointing that out, and staring at her in disbelief, left her with “Don’t you love your mother?”. Her mom ended up transferring to a palliative care facility for the last few months of her life.

When the chief of the trauma unit calls Dr. Shaw into his office after her usual shift for “a meeting”, she recognises this as code for yet another talk about _bedside manner_ and _the necessity of doctor-patient communication_. Sameen slumps back in the chair, glaring sullenly as he says, “you’ve read the DSM, you’ve probably diagnosed yourself in your first year”, and urges her to consider _alternative career paths_.

Because she _had_ immediately recognised herself when she read the DSM, even before entering medical school. It was obvious, and even though psychiatrists caution against self-diagnosis, that lack of empathy and inability to connect with or understand others placed her squarely under the umbrella of having an Axis II PD. Not that there was anything wrong with that – Shaw had certainly run across loads of MDs who were a lot less self-aware and more destructive than her who _didn’t_ have a PD – and it definitely didn’t make sense that they were firing their most competent resident just because she couldn’t pretend to care for people.

Dr. Sameen Shaw left the hospital, went home to a hot shower, a cold beer, and a systematic re-evaluation of her options and skills. She never came back.

\------------------------------------

If the field of medicine didn’t find her combination of skills useful, she figured that the military would. Once she had signed up and shown what she could do – thanks to years of martial arts and weapons training – after basic military training, every unit commander jumped at the chance to have her.

Private Shaw didn’t give a damn, it was _all too fucking easy_ , and she should’ve signed on a long time ago instead of trying to fit her square peg into a round hole. After her first couple of tours of Iraq and a purple heart – not that she particularly cared for the people she rescued and got shot for, it was just a part of the fucking job – covert ops snapped her up, erased her old identity and suddenly life got a lot more _interesting_. As Indigo-5-alpha, at least she was protecting her country, and life was fun – she got to shoot people, infiltrate, extract, occasionally get in fights and she even had a fucking _partner_. Cole. Whom she was tempted to shoot only once in a while. 

That was when shit went to hell and her fucking bosses decided to betray and kill them both. Like, it was fine that they’d want to kill _her_. It wasn’t like she had any human ties anyway, and she understood the game intimately – stay relevant enough or you’re dead. But Cole had a _fucking family_ who was waiting for him and didn’t deserve this _shit_. And now they would be collateral damage and it wasn’t _fucking fair_.

Shaw didn’t do emotions in general, but one that she did well and accepted like an old friend was anger. There would be payback, and it would be a bitch. The first step would be to get information from Veronica Sinclair. Specifically, about the identity of Control.

That was how Shaw found herself zip-tied to a chair with an iron in her face. _Fucking hell_. She had no idea who this woman was, but she had lots of experiences with psychopaths before and this lady was dinging that bell hard. That wide, almost innocent smile that didn’t reach her eyes was a dead giveaway, but at least there was one positive to take from the situation. “One thing that they left out of my file – I kinda enjoy this kind of thing,” Shaw muttered through gritted teeth. At this, “Veronica”’s eyes gleamed. “I am so glad you said that. I do too.” _Well, shit_.

Somehow Shaw survives that FUBAR situation, and wakes up in an ambulance with a job offer. She doesn’t know who the 2 guys who saved her are, but it’s not like it makes a difference anyway. Her life has gone to pieces and she is officially dead. Again. Well, to be fair, it wasn’t so bad when she “died” the first time and joined special ops – till they tried to dispose of her like a well-worn pair of cotton underwear. And you can only look forwards, right? Shaw mooches around for a few months attempting to find Control and take revenge before she finds out that her employers are not above black-washing her partner.

She finally accepts the job offer when she hears that one of the guys who saved her put it out that Cole wasn’t a traitor. She figures that she owes him. Besides, he seems to be tracking Ms. Psychopath (who has a fucking pretentious cover name, _Root_ , or something, like _Madonna_ or _Cher_ ) from the hotel and she needs a new hobby to entertain her. That this new job seems to involve shooting people (even if it’s just in the kneecap) is also a huge plus, even if Finch yells at her for it. In the “con” column, she actually has to deal with _people_ , something that she was able to avoid during her time with the ISA. Well, at least there’s a dog. That makes everything better.

\------------------------------------

Shaw didn’t anticipate having to spend so much time on this mission chasing after a mouthy 10-year-old who somehow figured out that she is _different_. Except that Gen was _wrong_. Kid probably didn’t know that you can’t turn up what isn’t there, and no amount of “listening” or amplification of a signal can make it audible if it doesn’t stand out above the noise. It’s physics and shit.

Besides, Shaw can’t be bothered standing around an old broken dial, tweaking it up and down while trying to figure out the analogue wave signals. Not when there are immediate dangers to deal with and it’s not like figuring it out benefits anyone anyway. She would rather leave that _navel-gazing bullshit_ to the psychotherapy industry. At least that’s where it’s profitable, she thinks. She hugs Gen anyway, because it would probably scar the kid forever if she didn’t, or something. And she doesn’t need that on her non-existent conscience. That allows her to move on.

The revelation that the source of intelligence for _Northern Lights_ and her new employer is a machine that trawls huge amounts of personal information and video surveillance feeds doesn’t faze Shaw. She supposes that it was only a matter of time, and the world was going to hell in a handbasket anyway, and it was just a matter of being more efficient and systematic about it. She finally got to shoot Root – in the shoulder, since Finch didn’t approve of killing, hypocritical as it sounded – and last she heard, Root was imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital.

As far as Shaw was concerned, that’s exactly where Root belongs. But she’d rather just shoot first and ask questions later. Then Root escapes. No thanks to Finch and his machine and and their stupid need to _rehabilitate_ people. When she gets kidnapped by Root, things start to shift again. It’s a big blow to her ego that _anyone_ , even a psychopath, can break into her apartment and tase her in her sleep. Even if she admittedly had help from the machine. That was _totally not playing fair_.

Shaw vows to shoot Root when the mission is over, or at least stab her in a non-vital part of her body. Somewhere that would cause maximum pain without actually _killing_ the bitch. When Root smirks and tells Shaw “I.need.you.”, Shaw grits her teeth, trying hard not to think about how she _needs_ to shoot the smile off Root’s face. She’s well aware that they’re dancing on the knife edge of violence and sex, and isn’t quite sure which side they’re going to fall on.

Not that she’s above sleeping with her co-workers, but Shaw doesn’t _do_ psychopaths. With good reason. Things get too fucking complicated and unpredictable, and before you know it things that were invisible come into the picture and it all ends up being more trouble than it’s worth. When they break into a CIA safehouse and are stuck there for 10 hours, Shaw locks Root in the bathroom with the agent she knocked out, before taking a much-deserved nap.

It’s nothing personal, it’s just that Root fucking _tased her awake_ and she’s _sleep deprived_ and she can’t trust Root not to do _something weird_ while she sleeps. When she finally ties Root up and delivers her to the CIA transport site, it feels like she’s back at her old job, having to deliver under pressure at every single moment and trusting that shit works out in the end. It’s almost like she has a partner again.

They rescue Jason Greenfield, and in between the crashing of the truck and Root dragging Greenfield into the sewer, Shaw sees a glimpse of the “bigger picture” that the Machine has, that Root is so dedicated to serving. To give her credit, it’s all very elegant, like Euler’s identity or Pi, with no detail wasted and everything serving a purpose in the circle of life or some shit like that, but ultimately, it was a good day because it was the most fun Shaw has had in a while. And she got to punch that smug fucker Root when it was over, that was deeply satisfying. If you were to ask Shaw, she didn’t really care to save Root’s life, but preserving the direct line to the machine was a necessary evil to get more days like today. She _really_ doesn’t care for Root.

\------------------------------------

Then Carter gets herself fucking killed and it wouldn’t have happened if Root had only been around. Not that Shaw blames Finch, since he has his own Daddy issues with the Machine and feels badly enough about it, brooding and all. Shaw didn’t realise that Reese felt that strongly about Carter till it happened, either. But she was a _good’un_ , and it wasn’t _right or fair_ , and Shaw doesn’t do grief or sadness.

She tags herself on to John’s rampage and it doesn’t matter how many lives they up-end as long as she gets sweet revenge to salve that anger. In the end Simmons ends up dead, and it’s not by Shaw’s hand, or Reese’s, or even Fusco’s, and there is an urge to soothe that emptiness inside with food, or sex, or more violence. Shaw can’t decide if her ability to move on is a gift or a curse, all she knows is that being focused on the present and future means that she doesn’t need to deal with the fucked up shit that happens in her life. That has happened in her life.

She thinks that to avoid more _Carter situations_ in the future, perhaps the best thing would be to just allow Root out to do the Machine’s will. Then she ends up being tied to a chair while trying to rescue another number with Finch. At least she’s finally got the chance to meet her old boss. When the shit hits the fan again, Root somehow escapes from her Faraday cage, rescues all of them and gets herself shot and kidnapped by Control. Tough luck.

Shaw is pissed and spends days searching for Root, because _the mission_ would be compromised if the Machine’s largest asset was killed. Or worse. A few days later, Harold says that he’s got a message from Root: “Tell Shaw that I was touched that she came to look for me”. Shaw rolls her eyes and thinks that she shouldn’t even have bothered.

How could she have ever thought that letting Root out to wreak havoc on their plans could be a good thing? Like, they had a system set up to work the numbers already, and Root turns up, supposedly on the Machine’s orders, telling them to butt out? “I couldn’t make you look bad if I tried,” Root simpers from the balcony above after dropping a protein bar down to Shaw. On the good side of things, at least she didn’t have to deal with Vigilance snipers while hungry.

On the flip side of things, taking off meant no adrenaline, no getting to shoot at bad guys, no fun. There was no fucking way that Root would hijack that particular pleasure. Dealing with Vigilance was almost too easy, those guys were total amateurs. But Root got shot trying to save the number, and that was _not like her_ at all. It was almost like she cares about the number, and that was puzzling. “Keep ‘em dry. Change the dressings every 72 hours”. If Root can show some morality, maybe that BS rehabilitation at the psych facility actually worked, Shaw thinks. “I love it when you play doctor,” Root smirks. Scrap that. Shaw pulls her hand back quickly as if burnt, glaring. Leopards and spots and all that.

After Vigilance kidnaps Finch, the lights get switched off and NYC turns into an apocalyptic zombie movie without hungry undead, Shaw leaves Finch’s rescue to John and Hersch and rides a bike to NJ because Root apparently has a fucking _death wish_. It’s not like she actually cares about what happens to Root, or that she even thinks that Root has changed, acquired a conscience, or whatever. But Shaw understands that Root is _essential_ to the Machine, and by extension, to the team.

\------------------------------------

Root is infiltrating a Decima fortress without those nerds or the help of the Machine to bring down Samaritan, and therefore, that’s where the party is at. Or at least action and possible death. Which makes things fun. When Shaw shows up, Root smiles affectionately, and that dance of sex and death that makes them such a great team clicks into place again. No, Root is wrong – Shaw doesn’t particularly care about that chemistry, or Root herself. It’s the mission that she’s worried about. And she will strangle Root if that’s what it takes to get her to stop her wisecracking.

“It was never about winning. It was just about surviving,” Root explains, finally allowing her despair to show as they drive back into Manhattan. Shaw doesn’t know what to say, she’s never been good at consoling people – not when she was a doctor, and certainly not now that she’s a trained killer. She simply nods as they part, taking the package that contains her new identity, and Sameen Shaw is dead again, with Sameen Grey to take her place. It’s not like she can do anything more for the team, with all of them scattered like pins, and it feels like that time just after her bosses tried to kill her, when she had no place where she belonged.

Actually, no. This is waaaaaay worse than that time, Sameen thinks. She’s back to having people use her first name, and it’s hell having to repress her urge to shoot these superficial, annoying fuckers who are raging about an additional 10% discount on their credit card purchase when the terms and conditions state clearly that it only applies where other offers are not in effect.

She clearly doesn’t get paid enough to exercise this much self-control, and when Root turns up looking for a new lip gloss, telling her to check some dating app, it’s all Sameen can do not to stick her stiletto in Root. At least Root looks good in her luminescent blue dress and killer heels and bright red lipstick with that infuriating smirk, it’s certainly an improvement from the last time Sameen saw her, all depressed and looking like Bear after too much chocolate. Not that Sameen actually cares about Root’s emotional state.

Then Root starts turning up much too often for her to simply be conveying messages from the Machine. “Are you checking up on me?” Sameen growls, annoyed. Root just smiles, “I worry about you, Sameen,” and directs her back to the fucking dating app with a vague instruction to trust the Machine. Well, at least it all makes sense when she ends up joining a gang to commit robberies.

That’s certainly a release from the retail hell of her day job, though being a driver is hardly the most exciting role to play. The Machine pulls that big-picture long-term game shit again, and it all makes sense when she meets Tomas and gets him out of trouble. The old Shaw would’ve hit that in a heartbeat, but recently, things have been strange.

It’s not like she’s been holding herself back for Root, and she knows that Root doesn’t have any grounds to protest even if she did choose to fuck around. It’s just that Root has seemed more vulnerable recently. Without the Machine’s constant presence, she’s needed to depend more on others around her, and she's been looking depressed. Plus, Sameen has seen Root watching her, in the corner of her eye, a slight smile on her face, and she knows what THAT means.

Root doesn’t bother to hide the way that her face lights up when speaking to Sameen, either, and then there was that mess with Finch where he essentially said that Root was intending to martyr herself for the Machine. It’s not much, but the only time that Root seems to be happy these days is when flirting with her, so Shaw no longer reacts as violently, and takes it at face value – as just another form of entertainment. Shaw might be sociopathic, but she certainly isn’t cruel.

\------------------------------------

These are the things – and Bear, and Finch, and Reese, even Fusco – that fast-forward through Shaw’s head when Tomas invites her to go to Barcelona with him. Her mind is made up for her even before he finishes speaking. Shaw doesn’t get emotional and generally doesn't give a shit about people, but she’s always known that she can’t live entirely for her own goals.

Whether as a trauma doctor, or as a government assassin, or while working the numbers, these roles gave her life context and value, made her someone worthy, regardless of what she could not feel. They were necessary _because_ she was incomplete. That rag-tag band of misfits that she was now associated with cared about her and would go to the ends of the earth for her. Especially that psychopath who seemed to create fantasies around what she _didn’t_ feel, but whatever.

Shaw understands loyalty, and having others commit this deeply to you meant that you owed the same back. It happens in all wars, and the AI apocalyptic party isn’t over yet. She smirks at Tomas when he’s finished his sell, and just turns around, walking back to her family.

Shaw manages to sneak up on Root, and the surprise, followed by delight, on her face is delicious. When Shaw grudgingly admits that she’s finally found people whom she cares about, Root’s expression shifts to awe, and then coy amusement.

“Is that why you came to see me?” Root tilts her head, charmingly, hopefully.

“No.”

Shaw never thought that she could get so much fun out of teasing Root, nor did she think herself particularly sadistic, but the honesty in Root’s crestfallen expression was a rare pleasure. The hastily tagged on excuse about decontaminating the Marburg virus was something that Shaw would never admit to after. Well – Shaw did need a place to sleep, after all.

It wasn’t far to the safehouse that Root led her to, but Shaw supposed that Root probably had loads of them scattered all over the city. Even without the Machine’s assistance, Root was still _Root_ , with contingency plans heaped upon secondary contingencies and more leverage to play with than Zoe Morgan.

“So.” Root held open the door as Shaw stepped through, much like their first meeting. “You got a cold one around here?” Shaw pulled her black leather jacket off, heading for the kitchen and sticking her head in the small bar fridge in the corner. “I think it’s… right in the back here.” Root came up behind her, and was suddenly far too close, pressed up against her back as she reached into the back of the fridge. Shaw growled, pushing a smirking Root off her while grabbing the bottle. “No _thank you_?”

Shaw knows that _this_ , whatever _this_ is, is a _really_ bad idea. Apart from her existing policy on psychopaths and not fucking them – even if they seem to have gotten better on objective measures like not killing people – it’s _Root_ , who has feelings for her that a blind man could spot from the moon, which means complications and buying herself trouble in the future. Shaw doesn’t even know what Root sees in her, apart from the physical thing, and it’s not really her problem if Root’s fallen for a fantasy of a badass with a heart that she’s constructed in her own head.

Generally, Shaw prefers to keep things simple. If it were a normal civilian she’d sleep with him a couple of times before ghosting him out of her life, no harm, no foul, no one gets hurt. But Root _knows_ about the PD, _knows_ about her father and the sandwich, _knows_ about the people she’s killed. Objectively speaking, Root should know that she has no capacity for _this_ , whatever _this_ is, and that she’s just setting herself up for failure. Root is _smarter_ than _this_ , which is why Shaw can’t figure out what’s going on.

Shaw sleeps with her anyway. She rationalises that she has an itch to scratch, and whatever, she can figure out these complications later, and in the worst case scenario, Samaritan takes over the world and they’re all gonna die anyway, so they might as well make hay while the sun shines. Or fuck while they’re still alive. Same thing.

It kinda sucks that it’s _really really_ good and now she’s gonna have to ignore those memories of Root arching against her as she comes, or that moment when the first light of dawn hit the curtain at an angle, with Root’s face backlit and beautiful with a fucking blissful smile on her face. Shaw is pretty sure that there is some non-Samaritan cosmic conspiracy at work here because she doesn’t fucking _do_ feelings. Especially those that involve apparently _meaningful_ observations about lighting and beauty and shit. She leaves before Root wakes up, doesn’t even pause at the door.

\------------------------------------

Then Shaw’s cover is blown and she has to resort to the emergency sub-machine gun with 2 clips stowed away in the locker under her counter that she had to clear away 2 weeks of luminizer stock for. She makes her exit just as Root turns up on her motorcycle and tosses her a helmet. Shaw has been going out of her way to avoid Root since _it_ happened, but she reckons that her life being in danger makes this situation _special circumstances_ that can’t be avoided. She stays away from thoughts pertaining to Root’s motorcycle jacket and leather pants. 

When Root tries that guilt thing and implies that she cares for Shaw, she rolls her eyes to cover up her rage and that irritating feeling underneath that Root may be right. Shaw has only ever functioned alone – only knows to function alone – and the damsel in distress hiding in a Mario brothers tower… er.. subway tunnel… isn’t a role that Shaw wears well. Especially after hearing that Reese is trying to bail out Carl Elias.

Shaw wakes up in the subway tunnel _hating_ Root. And Finch. At least there’s her favourite sandwich with the extra ingredients and the drugs don’t seem to have affected her appetite. But she’ll be damned if Root thinks she can steal her drink. Far too many liberties taken, not enough respect for her space. The urge to punch Root is back again, and comfortingly shoves that other unspeakable urge to kiss her waaaaay back down.

When Samaritan starts screwing with the global economy for kicks and her team walks into an obvious trap below the NYSE, Shaw finds herself with few options. Especially since Root called. Sure, she didn’t really say anything of substance, but knowing her wish to martyr herself for the machine, it seemed obvious to Shaw that the situation underground was pretty damned bad. So she talked the suicide bomber into loaning her some C4 – he wasn’t going to need it where he was going anyway – and crawled through 50 yards of air duct with a single handgun and three clips to get to them.

That first look on Root’s face when she appeared made her stomach clench, and Shaw had the sudden urge to crawl back out. Shaw doesn’t _do_ feelings, and that expression isn’t something that she needs to deal with right now because _serious shit is going down_. As she and Root start to put on cover fire so that Fusco and Finch can drag Reese to the service elevator, Root suddenly starts talking about stuff like how good they are together, and “maybe someday”s.

Shaw hears emotionally triggering phrases that generally would make her rage and start kicking asses, but right now is _not a good time_ , so she buys a few seconds with compliments and some meaningless metaphor about an oil refinery. Shaw _really_ doesn’t like having to come up with romantic shit under duress.

Then the elevator is stuck and there’s an override button and Root looks like she’s finally gonna get her chance to martyr herself. It’s not like she particularly cares for Root, or Reese, or Finch, or Fusco, but Shaw recognises that she’s a duplicate role – Reese was the muscle before she came on Team Machine, and she’s the most replaceable. Except that Root’s eyes are screaming her feelings, and fear, and her mouth is moving, “Sameen, if you even think I’m gonna let you-“

It was a moment of clarity, and the perfect end – the way everything had come full circle. She shrugged internally. She understood – not what love was, or how it feels to love – but what it _could_ feel like to love. As she rolled her eyes, grabbed Root, kissed her, and shoved her back into the elevator, dashing back out to hit the button and open fire on Samaritan agents, Sameen understood with a clarity of mind and acceptance that it didn’t fucking matter. Drama, complication, the fucked up and irritating stuff that came with caring and love – it all depended on one’s perspective.

The anguish etched in Root’s face as the first bullet hit, then the second, the echoing screams of horror forming a backdrop against the sound of gunfire and that blonde terminator standing over Shaw’s fallen body and a defiant expression. Sex and love, Gods and monsters, life and death, sacrifice and survival, all are different aspects of the same thing. Shaw finally understood that she wasn’t broken, or incomplete. She was just another part to make a whole.

Of course, she’d rather have a cold beer and Root shut up with that screaming and that she not have 2 bullet holes in her torso that she knows have struck her lower intestine and her spleen, but Sameen thinks that it’s enough. To know that for all of the paramedic’s horror and the judgment from her chief of trauma or Control or even numbers like Gen, _she_ is enough for some.


End file.
